“Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar)”
–David Bowie, “Blackstar”

I know, I know. Why didn’t I do my Favorites of 2016 IN 2016? Didn’t we just get rid of that stupid, death-ridden year? Now we have to revisit it??? While those are fair questions, in my defense I’m very lazy. Also, getting writing done during the Christmas holidays with two kids under six isn’t really an option. And finally, for all the shade that can rightfully be thrown at 2016, there were several excellent records released, and wouldn’t you rather read about them then ignore them because they came out last year? Of course you would.

Let me get my usual caveats about year-end lists out of the way now. Firstly, all lists like this should be moving targets. This is my Top 11 as of January 2017. In January 2027 I expect it to be different. I want my tastes to evolve. Second, I differentiate “favorite” from “best” because “best” doesn’t exist. “Best” is an intellectual construct crippled on every level by personal subjectivity and cultural bias. I’m simply acknowledging up front that I like what I like and here’s a Top 10 with 11 records on it because I’m terrible at math. Hopefully, there’s a song or two you like enough that you take advantage of the purchase links I’ve included throughout this piece. Most of these artists are truly independent, so I’m sure they’d appreciate a little financial support.

It feels like we lost something elemental, as if an entire color is gone. #DavidBowie

The idea that 2016 was a shitstack year began early on the morning of January 10th, when news of David Bowie’s sudden, unexpected death hit social media. Cancer snuck up on him and us. Bowie battled liver cancer for 18 months, dying two days after both his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar. Mourners hadn’t realized he’d been diagnosed with cancer, so the news had a double-barreled effect: the simple fact of his death, as well as the cause. Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag) nails it in the tweet above. How in the world does David Bowie die? That can’t be a thing.

Bowie’s death immediately made Blackstar essential listening. I’m a Bowie fan, but I’m not a zealot. My wife is a zealot and I don’t think she recovered from his death for about 6 months. She knew Blackstar was released on January 8, but even she didn’t immediately buy it. What was the rush, right? Once you digest the album and realize that Bowie is saying goodbye to his fans, it’s pretty overwhelming emotionally. It’s hard not to tear up, even if you’re a casual fan like me. “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” the last song on the album, is such a beautiful, cathartic, tone perfect end to the album, his career, and his life. Now, Blackstar isn’t my favorite record of 2016, but it’s easily the most important record of the year. I wouldn’t blame anyone for putting it at #1, but right now it’s my #6. I think it sags a bit in the middle, but I’ll get to my proper review later.

An interesting by-product of Bowie’s passing was that because it happened so early in the year, we spent the remainder of the year processing it. Musicians especially paid homage, a symbolic torch passed from artist to artist. In fact, 6 of my Top 9 albums are either by artists with an obvious Bowie influence, contains a song specifically referencing Bowie, contains a song that is structured like a Bowie song, or are by the man himself. Ergo, The Bowie Effect. To reckon with 2016 meant reckoning with the DB legacy, a legacy that not only included transcendent music, but also conveyed the message to be comfortable enough in your own skin that you’d be willing to try anything, even at the risk of failure. Be an artist.

1. CAR SEAT HEADREST – TEENS OF DENIAL

Teens Of Denial is powerful medicine. According to singer, songwriter, guitarist, and de facto group stand-in, Will Toledo, much of the album is autobiographical, so the songs being in first person isn’t simply a literary decision. If the emotional stakes feel sky high, it’s probably because they are. Toledo muses on life and death and finding one’s place in between, but in a weirdly anachronistic, small c conservative way. He’s obsessed with and seemingly repulsed by sex, he’s anti-drug, and he isn’t just anti-drunk driving, he’s written the best anti-drunk driving song ever (“Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales”). What really stands out about Toledo, though, is that his existential crises are offset by a scathingly dark sense of humor, often at his own expense.

“What happened to that chubby little kid
Who smiled so much and loved the Beach Boys?
What happened is I killed that fucker
And I took his name and I got new glasses”
–“Destroyed By Hippie Powers”

“Last Friday I took acid and mushrooms
I did not transcend
I felt like a walking piece of shit
In a stupid looking jacket”
–“(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School For Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem)”

Car Seat Headrest – “Fill In The Blank”
89.3 The Current
Minnesota Public Radio
July 18, 2016

Again, this album has a strange sense of conservatism about it. It’s not an ideological thing, though it is clearly grounded in morality. Whatever the case, it’s a curiously refreshing tone to strike. “Fill In The Blank” could very well be Toledo arguing with himself, but it’s not a stretch to interpret this as a parent — or really, any older authority figure — talking to a kid they don’t understand. This version isn’t too dissimilar from the album version, but the guitars are a little more in your face. I know how much Adios Lounge readers hate loud electric guitars in their face.

I can totally understand someone not digging Toledo’s mumble shouty vocals. But, that’s true of any singer. Some you like, some you don’t. If you can warm up to his voice, it’s hard to imagine you won’t be surprised by both his clever observations and the dense musical arrangements. The songs don’t proceed in predictable verse chorus verse chorus fashion. They meander and dart, build up and breakdown, and if you allow yourself to be drawn in, you will be rewarded. I think Teens Of Denial has serious In The Aeroplane Over The Sea potential. Which is to say, I predict that years from now the album will have grown in stature and influence, such that the next generation of indie kids hail it as a masterpiece. We’ll see.

All that said, Teens Of Denial isn’t #1 solely because of its lyrics. It’s #1 because the gravitas of the lyrics is more than matched by the music, which combines the deadpan delivery of early Beck with the angular, heavy melodicism of a Pavement/Malkmus, Centro-Matic, or The Glands. In fact, dare I say there are actual Nirvana-esque moments? “Destroyed By Hippie Powers” and “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” have Cobain’s quietLOUD screamo pop dynamic for sure. Toledo has admitted that James Brown directly influenced “Vincent,” one of two songs to also have Elephant 6 type horns (the other being “Cosmic Hero”).

I like this Fallon take on “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” because the band is filled out with a few members of The Roots (piano player and pocket horns) and they’re playing the single version of the song. Lyrics are a little different and the arrangement is decidedly more epic. If Toledo ever learns how to command a stage like a right and proper frontman, this band could explode.

2. A Giant Dog – Pile

Car Seat earned the #1 slot, but I listened to Pile more than any other record in 2016. Singer Sabrina Ellis and lead guitarist Andrew Cashen are my favorite performing and songwriting tandem because they’re somehow able to co-pilot two bands sharing glammy common ground, but are of significantly different temperaments. Outside of a few songs, Sweet Spirit are all about the glitter dildo pop jams. In Bowie terms, they’re “Modern Love.” Sexy, catchy, and likeable.

A Giant Dog is “Suffragette City” or “Watch That Man” Bowie, but at 100 mph and in a bad mood. “Creep,” “Sleep When I’m Dead,” “Sex & Drugs,” “I’ll Come Crashing,” “Too Much Makeup” … these aren’t songs so much as bare-knuckled brawls. Granted, Pile has a couple of pure pop moments (“Jizzney” and “Get With You And Get High”) and those songs give the album tonal balance. But, the record is mostly anthemic, eighth note heavy punk rock. And while it’s easy to get overlooked in any band with Sabrina as frontwoman, I have to give props to bassist Graham Low. He’s particularly great on “I’ll Come Crashing” and “Failing In Love.” While the Ellis/Cashen dynamic is understandably front and center, Low’s bass is the band’s secret weapon and keeps the bottom end in line.

A Giant Dog – “Sex & Drugs”Pile

Gotta mention Jake Knight from Sweet Spirit, whose piano trills on “Sex & Drugs” are a highlight. That piano part is actually very Bowie (by way of Nicky Hopkins) in the sense that it’s offering a rhythmic, not a melodic counterpoint in the song. The melody is carried mostly by the voices, while the stabbing piano pushes the rhythm section forward until the very last note. Great stuff.

A Giant Dog – “Creep”
Grimey’s, Nashville
September 16, 2016

The band in their live element. As much as I love their studio work, on stage is when they’re at their best. Sarah and I were lucky enough to watch them destroy The Barracuda in Austin on September 21st, a few days after this Grimey’s in-store.

There’s actually a full version of this song on YouTube, but it’s shot from the back of the room and is fairly lifeless. This 47 second excerpt is way too short, but it puts you at ground zero. The impressive thing about Sweet Spirit’s go at “Blackstar” is that the song was: A) Only a week old at the time and B) 10 minutes long (they ended up cutting it by 3 minutes). Love that we get a slice of Bowie’s amazingly cathartic chorus, which echoes — to my ears, anyway — the melody of Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love.” And while we get Sabrina’s always gorgeous vocals, I like that the clip opens with saxophonist Leslie Matthews leaning on the brassy dissonance that’s intrinsic to Blackstar.

3. Connections – Midnight Run

As much as they sound kin to bands like Teenage Fanclub, The Glands (there they are again), and even Cheap Trick, one thing I love about these guys is they seem like the kind of band who when asked, “Beatles or Stones?” emphatically reply, “KINKS!” Singer Kevin Elliott and principal songwriter/rhythm guitarist, Andy Hampel, have been playing together for 25 years and it shows. Elliott’s voice is the perfect melodic foil for Hampel’s pop vision. Philip Kim’s wandering bass and Mike O’Shaughnessy’s heavy, fluid drums provide the sturdy bottom, so those melodies and vocals can weave up top. Add in Dave Capaldi’s explosions of lead guitar and Connections is powered by a special alchemy.

Connections – “Month 2 Month”Midnight Run

One of my favorite songs of 2016 is “Month 2 Month,” which starts with the main riff from Redd Kross’ “Stay Away From Downtown” and ends with Dave Capaldi channeling Mike Campbell for the lead guitar freakoutro.

4. Tyler Keith & The Apostles – Do It For Johnny

(Do It For Johnny) is gritty and raw and muscled up, punk country noir at its best. It’s criminal that these songs aren’t on every last radio in the savage, whiskey-loosened American night.”
–William Boyle, in the album’s liner notes

Former Neckbone and Preacher’s Kid brings throwback rock ‘n’ roll to the wine party and God bless him. Do It For Johnny has the feel of an AM radio punk rock opera. The title track is an alternate history theme song to The Outsiders and why didn’t anyone think of that first? Why does Tyler Keith have to do everything?!?! I love this recent-ish run of artists embracing classic ’50s/early ’60s rock ‘n’ roll: Reigning Sound, Amy Winehouse, JD McPherson, A Giant Dog, Orwells, Shannon And The Clams, Tough Shits, Low Cut Connie, Summer Twins, and now, Tyler Keith & The Apostles. It might be a Johnny Thunders thing and that’s OK by me.

Tyler Keith & The Apostles – “Criminal Gene”Do It For Johnny

5. Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide To Earth

I didn’t care for this record on first listen, but I’ve come around. Sturgill basically made a Bobby Charles album and I wasn’t prepared for it. I was expecting a more trad-ish effort, like Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Sailor’s Guide is charming, funky, and soulful as hell. What it’s not is traditional country. Even “Sea Stories,” the song most superficially recognizable as “country music,” subverts expectations by being pro-drug, anti-war, and even uses one deliberately alienating verse to reference a number of Asian cities. Sturgill made some noise in 2016 for his stance against the country music industry, but this album was a way bigger statement against cookie cutter Nashville than any interview snark. I’ll even go one step further. I think “Welcome To Earth (Pollywog)” is Sturgill’s “Blackstar.” Both are long suites that open their respective albums and resolve dissonance in the verses with a luscious pop chorus.

It’s worth noting that this version of “Keep It Between The Lines” was recorded the same day Prince died, one of the three most profound musical deaths of 2016, at least according to The Adios Lounge Preservation Society: 1) Bowie, 2) Prince, and 3) Merle Haggard.

6. David Bowie – Blackstar

And here we are. Bowie’s goodbye opus has moments of sublime beauty, especially the heartbreaking album closer, “I Can’t Give Everything Away.” That’s a spectacularly emphatic (and empathetic) statement on which to end a career, let alone life. I mostly enjoyed the album’s dense, lush arrangements, I liked that the rhythm section occasionally brought a stripped down soul/funk feel to the Bowiesphere, and Donny McCaslin’s sax was a highlight throughout. He’s Blackstar‘s MVP. On the downside, I’m not crazy about the two songs in the middle of the album — “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)” and “Girl Loves Me.” There’s only seven tracks, I don’t like two, and that works against a higher ranking. However, as I said at the beginning of this post, this Top 10 is fluid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Blackstar edged itself into the Top 3 one day.

David Bowie – “I Can’t Give Everything Away”Blackstar

That it’s a song of the year candidate is a given. However, “I Can’t Give Everything Away” is in the song of the century conversation.

7. Dexateens – Teenage Hallelujah

The Dexateens’ first full length since 2009 is a fun rock ‘n’ roll album and one narratively rooted in Alabama soil. While I expected fistpumping, 21st century southern rock jams like “Boys With Knives” and “Fellowship Of The Saturday Night Brotherhood,” I was pleasantly surprised by the album’s stylistic balance. The big guitar songs are complemented by delicate acoustic guitar and piano songs (“Treat Me Right”), a road-weary Faces-esque anthem (“Curtain Call Candace”), Bo Diddley punk (“Seen It All Like A Mountain”), and even country (“Red Bird Road”).

8. Gleeson – Curse My Lucky Stars

Curse My Lucky Stars is a solid album that only suffers by comparison to 2013’s more cohesive and more grandiose Gleeson II. In fact, it feels like an album by two different bands. My favorite version of the band is led by keyboardist Phillip McEachern, whose songs — “Lazy Bones,” “Troll Day,” “Lollygagged,” “Monte Siesta,” and “Milton Bradley’s Bible” — exhibit a well-defined sense of melancholia that feels like part of a unified vision. While 1970s Pink Floyd could certainly be a reference point, so is Hunky Dory-era Bowie. Gleeson’s other band is good, even very good, but that half feels more scattershot. Channing Lewis of Grand Champeen delivers the album’s best non-Phil song (“With My Motive Gone”) and sings lead on the album’s second best non-Phil song (“Seasons”).

Gleeson – “Monte Siesta”Curse My Lucky Stars

Though written before Bowie died, “Monte Siesta” feels like a posthumous requiem for the fallen Goblin King. So, let’s run with it. Phillip McEachern … The Oracle of Lo-Fi.

9. Moana: Original Soundtrack

This high placing is partially due to my daughters’ insistence on listening to this soundtrack every day, but I cannot tell a lie. I love these songs. I’m obviously not a Disney soundtrack guy by trade, but my mom was born in Hawaii, so there’s definitely Polynesian pride factoring in. For all of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s show tune sorcery, the smartest decision he and composer Mark Mancina made was filtering these songs through Samoan songwriter, Opetaia Foa’i. The trio successfully blends Broadway and pop sensibilities with the traditional sounds of the south Pacific islands, be they choral harmonies or drum polyrhythms.

Moana – “We Know The Way”
Vocal: Lin-Manuel Miranda

No offense to Sturgill Simpson, but if any album on this list should be titled (or subtitled) A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, it’s the Moana soundtrack. Polynesian navigators were the greatest sailors in human history. They put Europeans to shame by steering outrigger canoes over thousands of square miles of the Pacific Ocean without maps, and colonized nearly every island in the South Pacific. Polynesians also beat Columbus to the Americas by probably a century or more, arriving no later than the early 1400s. IN YOUR FACE, WHITE DEVILS!!!

Moana – “Shiny”
Vocal: Jemaine Clement

“Shiny” is Moana‘s stylistic outlier, but in the best way. Where the bulk of the movie is appropriately confined to South Pacific folk pop, Lin-Manuel Miranda used Tamatoa the Crab as his vehicle to write a clever, heartfelt homage to Mr. Jones. It’s actually Miranda’s homage to Jemaine Clement’s homage to Bowie from Flight Of The Conchords, which is must-see TV. He even admits as much in the clip below.

Lin-Manuel Miranda talks south Pacific folk music, Jemaine Clement, David Bowie, and working with The Rock.

Flight Of The Conchords – “Bowie’s In Space”
“Bowie”
Season 1, Episode 6
Originally broadcast July 22, 2007

2016 should be recognized for another Bowie-related tangent. I was a huge fan of Flight Of The Conchords during its original two-season run (2007, 2009). HBO began rerunning episodes in summer and fall and I knew about their brilliant Bowie homage, but Sarah did not. She was already becoming a fan of the show, but that episode sealed the deal. Little did we know that co-creator and co-star Jemaine Clement would appear in Moana, which we saw just a few weeks after viewing this episode.

10. Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book

Moments of greatness, but I’m not sure the songwriting and arrangements are equal to his rapping and ambition … yet. I like the combo of hip hop and live instruments because he clearly writes like a musician, but he’s a legit rapper as well. There’s elements of Kanye West and Prince, the latter especially in his appropriation of gospel-infused R&B. Coloring Book isn’t quite there, but I’m intrigued for Chance’s future.

This encapsulates my appreciation for and frustration with Coloring Book. The first half of this song, with Chance and the other guys rapping, is spectacular. And while I have no problem with the mid-song gospel makeover, it feels like an unfinished thought. It’s not terrible by any means, but it goes nowhere, and the song slowly loses steam.

11. Dwight Yoakam – Swimming Pools, Movie Stars

Dwight covers Dwight, bluegrass style. The band includes guitarist Bryan Sutton, fiddler Stuart Duncan, banjo player Scott Vestal, mandolinist Adam Steffey, and bassist Barry Bales. So, I beseech thee: How in the world was Yoakam and bluegrass not a thing until 2016??? See? As shitty as the year was in the macro, Dwight doing bluegrass was an unequivocal positive for 2016.

Dwight Yoakam – “Purple Rain”Swimming Pools, Movie Stars

If I’ve spent most of this post paying homage to Bowie, I was actually a bigger fan of Prince, especially his classic run of records in the 1980s. This version of “Purple Rain” was apparently an impromptu performance in the studio and thank God the engineer had the tape running. There’s something to be said for a track that sounds just as great as a soulful rock anthem as it does a bluegrass love song.

Death Of The Cool almost cracked the Top 11, but I feel like it doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the first song, “The Book Of Too Late Changes.” This mufugger doesn’t just rock, it rocks with the anarcho-pop ferocity of The Mice, Bill Fox’s obscure mid-’80s joint (whom I once tried rescuing from obscurity). “Dewitt Finley” and “Land Of Flowers” are gorgeous, “Child Bride” is a killer midtempo pop tune a la Nick Lowe, and “Waters Raging” rocks in an Elvis Costello circa Spike or Brutal Youth kinda way. A few songs are unremarkable, but nothing outright sucks. I just would’ve liked a couple more songs that sounded like Keith Moon playing with XTC or Roy McDonald playing with Redd Kross, for that matter. “Too Late Changes” is the only song that does that and I have to hold that against the record a little bit.

A confounding album, but not necessarily in a negative way. It could theoretically be anywhere from 7-25. There are times when I admire its bravado in evoking ’70s funk and soul a la Funkadelic and Bill Withers. There are other times when I feel like its ambition exceeds its grasp, that it sounds more derivative than inspired. Sorry Mike. Love And Hate will have to percolate for awhile longer.

A totally pleasant surprise. I expected Gary Louris’ catchy melodies, I expected country flourishes, but I didn’t expect it to rock as much as it does. I’m not saying rock like Motorhead, it’s that when a guitar needs to sound like a buzzsaw, it sounds like a buzzsaw. “Pretty Roses In Your Hair” captures this dichotomy well. It’s a poppy folk ballad that has a twisted, gnarly guitar solo that sounds like it was hijacked from Zuma. Not groundbreaking, but a solid collection of songs.

In a way these are the same album. Veteran artist goes to their wheelhouse and offers little in the way of experimentation. I’m mostly fine with that. I don’t mind knowing what I’m gonna get in a Dino Jr or Bob Mould album.

If you’re a Bowie fan, you may enjoy my next series of posts, which I call, “Bowie Blindspotting.” As I said above, I’m no zealot. There are chunks of the David Bowie discography with which I’m essentially unfamiliar. Granted, I’ve probably heard every album, but hearing and properly digesting are two different things. So, let’s change that. I’m gonna choose one record of his from the 1970s (Low), 1980s (probably Let’s Dance), and either the 1990s or 2000s (leaning Heathen), sit down with it, and record my thoughts. It should be fun.

“Seeing more and feeling less
Saying no but meaning yes
This is all I ever meant
That’s the message that I sent”
–David Bowie, “I Can’t Give Everything Away”